The Market May Want You To Die

The Republicans who now control the U.S. House of Representatives made demolishing the Obama healthcare bill their top priority during their campaign and will fight their hardest to make that demolition a reality now that they hold office. We all know the reasons: tea partiers want the government out of their Medicaid; seasoned republicans know they just need to trumpet their hatred of “big government” to stay seated; and most in both camps believe that the “market” is gospel and should dictate who should get health coverage.

The Department of Health and Human Services released a study showing that between 50 and 129 million Americans have some kind of pre-existing health condition. As plenty of Americans know, a preexisting condition can allow insurance companies to deny some or even all coverage. Should an insurance company decide to change their criteria defining “pre-existing condition,” it’s possible for a patient to lose coverage as well. But, under the Affordable Care Act, soon enough Americans will not be subject to coverage denial or extraordinarily high premiums because of preexisting conditions.

The “efficiency” that the free market solution has offered for insurance is to provide a lower quality product at greater cost. And that’s already with heavy government subsidy to their profit margins – the government covers the most expensive groups (elderly, extremely poor, dialysis patients) under publicly funded plans.

I believe that there are some large sectors of economies that require command solutions – healthcare, transportation, infrastructure, etc.

Liam_McGonagle

Halleluja, brother!

The overwhelming ignorance of the masses regarding even the most basic principles of economics is disgusting. Since at least the ’80’s we’ve not been able to wrap their tiny little heads around any economic precept more sophisticated than ‘profit’.

Just what the hell was going on in our collective brains when we forgot that there are certain enterprises that by definition are SUPPOSED to be revenue neutral–like government and insurance?

My thought is that it was during the Reagan years. Our collective dumb asses saw the self-induced death of the Soviet Union by a power-mad misallocation of resources, and concluded that greed-madness would somehow have materially different consequences.

emperorreagan

I’m dumbfounded as to what efficiency people imagine private insurers add to the system.

I blame Carter for starting the sell-out. Deregulation really began under Carter and he started the trend of Democratic presidents selling fringe libertarian economic positions to the American populace. With thirty years of both Republican and Democratic administrations pushing slight variations on the same economic theme, it’s become the mainstream economic view through repetition.

emperorreagan

The “efficiency” that the free market solution has offered for insurance is to provide a lower quality product at greater cost. And that’s already with heavy government subsidy to their profit margins – the government covers the most expensive groups (elderly, extremely poor, dialysis patients) under publicly funded plans.

I believe that there are some large sectors of economies that require command solutions – healthcare, transportation, infrastructure, etc.

Liam_McGonagle

Halleluja, brother!

The overwhelming ignorance of the masses regarding even the most basic principles of economics is disgusting. Since at least the ’80’s we’ve not been able to wrap their tiny little heads around any economic precept more sophisticated than ‘profit’.

Just what the hell was going on in our collective brains when we forgot that there are certain enterprises that by definition are SUPPOSED to be revenue neutral–like government and insurance?

My thought is that it was during the Reagan years. Our collective dumb asses saw the self-induced death of the Soviet Union by a power-mad misallocation of resources, and concluded that greed-madness would somehow have materially different consequences.

Marklar_Prime

Making it impossible for insurance companies to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions is great but does little to offset the dictatorial mandate for people to buy insurance or face fines and prison. I for one will never purchase health care because of a mandate no matter what the penalties. Obama failed to give us true universal single payer coverage. The monster bill he did give us deserves to die as the useless piece of garbage that it is.

http://twitter.com/Marklar_Prime Marklar Kronkite

Making it impossible for insurance companies to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions is great but does little to offset the dictatorial mandate for people to buy insurance or face fines and prison. I for one will never purchase health care because of a mandate no matter what the penalties. Obama failed to give us true universal single payer coverage. The monster bill he did give us deserves to die as the useless piece of garbage that it is.

emperorreagan

I’m dumbfounded as to what efficiency people imagine private insurers add to the system.

I blame Carter for starting the sell-out. Deregulation really began under Carter and he started the trend of Democratic presidents selling fringe libertarian economic positions to the American populace. With thirty years of both Republican and Democratic administrations pushing slight variations on the same economic theme, it’s become the mainstream economic view through repetition.

Andrew

The Market wants me to die, the Islamofascists want me to die… Really, who doesn’t want me to die?

Andrew

The Market wants me to die, the Islamofascists want me to die… Really, who doesn’t want me to die?

Andrew

The Market wants me to die, the Islamofascists want me to die… Really, who doesn’t want me to die?